A year ago, Cossette Media introduced its Responsible Media Solutions (RMS) group under the leadership of Toronto-based SVP Brian Cuddy.

This unit was created to act as an innovation incubator for thought leadership, products and partnerships, but doesn’t sit on its own. It’s built into how the agency does business across its product group.

In its thought leadership and research, RMS has four areas of focus. The first is Canadian media at the local and community levels to support quality, fact-based journalism. The remaining three pillars are promoting diverse voices; sustainability; and investment stewardship to ensure
ad investments are being used effectively, efficiently and are aligned with clients’ business goals.

Cuddy is now leading a team of 76 across the Responsible Media Solutions, activation and investment areas at Cossette Media, though he is now supported by Adrian Novoa, a veteran of more than 12 years with Cossette Media who was promoted to VP of Responsible Media Solutions in the Montreal office earlier this year.

Cuddy says technology, partnerships and its Plus Company association are helping RMS in its mission. Those partnerships include working with Sharethrough to create the green PMP carbon measurement piece of its programmatic buying. In addition, the agency has launched its Purpose Marketplace in beta, a digital media offering designed to create matches between publishers and advertisers to ensure client presence in high-quality media environments.

RMS has also been investing in qualitative research through partnerships with academic institutions to understand the link between high-quality media, trust and downstream business outcomes to better value quality media in the planning and buying processes and drive greater outcomes. By using new approaches with verification technology, experimenting with new approaches to ad verification, attention measurement, content understanding and classification, and carbon measurement, Cuddy says the agency has found, for example, that local media outperforms on most verification metrics.

“Furthering our partnerships, we are prioritizing media partners who are innovating in the space and providing access and avenues for collaboration with our teams,” Cuddy adds. “We are eager to have a greater impact and to progress our work quickly in this space. We know the impacts to business are strong and our partners in the space are going through a challenging regulatory landscape.”

One of the major initiatives that Cuddy is excited about is the late September launch of an all-in-one operating system at Plus Company called Plus AIOS. The new operating system uses predictive intelligence to zero in on individual journeys, tracking back from an actual outcome like a sale to reveal every step along the way. It provides near real-time visibility across channels and a continuous feedback loop to help understand how each touchpoint, creative, and message contributes to campaign success.

“It’s an innovative approach to how we measure and value media assessment. We’re testing it on a few clients right now and what we’re finding is we’re able to drive a lot more value through this measurement approach,” Cuddy says. “The technology is coming together in a way that will drive more quality out of the digital ecosystem. As we see audiences shifting and the mechanisms of buying, whether TV, connected TV or radio, audio, or out of home, there’s more opportunity to get that right and really understand the impact of the media investments.”